Fallen Angel
by CaligoArye
Summary: After "The Gift" Buffy finds out what's beyond the light and is given a choice. The rating is high because of alcohol consumption. Other than that it's all good. Companion piece to Promises to Keep. I plan on writing a lot with Jacki/Caligo because she's


Fallen Angel  
  
Note: I don't own Buffy and all the wonderful characters depicted in the show. Nor do I own Wrinkle in Time which I mention and borrow concepts, such as tessering from. Don't sue me, I have no money. I own Jacki, but the idea of what she is was adapted from Micheal Moorcock's Eternal Warrior.   
  
Set After the Gift. Don't try to figure out Jacki's chronology. She defies space/time. She doesn't even know her chronology. I'll put up a suggested reading order once I finish two more stories in the series! Read my other stuff too!!!  
  
  
I feel as light as a feather. The weight and burden of this world has been lifted. I'm not falling, I'm flying!  
  
~Buffy~ It's a voice I've never heard before, but the energy feels familiar.  
  
*Jacki?* She was a friend. From long ago. I met her during the time I ran away from Sunnydale, after I let Angel go to Hell, to save my world. She found me wandering, go me my job, bought me a few drinks, talked and then disappeared. It didn't occur to me to worry about her. *Are you like my guardian angel, or something?* I asked, trying to piece it all together.  
  
~No. It's much more complicated than that.~ she said ~Please, come with me.~  
  
*Ok* there was a flash. Kind of. I don't have eyes anymore. I more knew the flash was there.  
  
~You can look now.~ Jacki told me.  
  
I opened my "eyes" and gasped. I was in a place, a glowing white room. It was beautiful, like the soft white of lilies.   
  
"Cool, we can talk."   
  
Buffy whirled to the suddenly "physical" voice behind her. There was Jacki, well, for a second. The being flickered between different forms, at times looking like a teenage girl, an ancient seraphim with 3 sets of iridescent wings, a mother, a bride, a cloaked elder. Buffy blinked, trying to stop the vertigo the flickering caused.  
  
"Focus, Buffy, remember what I looked like when we met." Jacki urged, and Buffy did. Jacki's form settled into that of a girl, slightly older than her, with shoulder length auburn hair and bright blue eyes. There was a happy smile, and a half-drunk beer in her hand. Jacki saw the beer and laughed. It was bright musical laugh, reminding Buffy of sunshine dancing on a rippling lake. "Good call on the beer." Jacki said taking a swig.  
  
"What's going on?" Buffy asked, "Where is this? Who are you, really?"  
  
Jacki gestured, and there was a beer in Buffy's hands. "You sacrificed yourself, Buffy." She said gravely, "To save the world and your sister, you went headlong into the abyss. But you're not dead. You're...in between."  
  
"In Between? What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Well basically, you're in the place between the dimensions. It kind of like the 5th dimension."  
  
"Fifth dimension?"  
  
"Yeah, you know the one we tesser through?"  
  
"Tesser?" Buffy was even more confused than ever.  
  
Jacki sighed, "Ok you know that the first dimension is represented by a straight line, right?" encouraged by an affirmative nod, she continued, "The second dimension is a flat square or a drawing on paper. The third dimension is a cube, or solid objects. The fourth is when you overlay time over that. The fifth is beyond that. It's a bit confusing, I can quite fully visualize it, it's described as a cubed-cube cubed (yeah I know, huh? That's what I say), but basically is warp space or hyperspace. We can use it to shorten the distance between two points by bending space/time as you would a cloth or paper. Rather than draw a straight line from point A to point B, we overlap space/time so that point A is Point B. That's what a portal is, an overlap of space/time. Does that make sense? [AN: That's a question I ask everyone]. I dunno, I'm not a science person. I'm an artist. Scientific reasoning is not my strong point. I just don't think that everything needs to be explained, somethings simply, well, are."  
  
"So basically from here, I can go anywhere?"  
  
"And anywhen. You get the picture." Jacki said, gesturing for the beers to get refilled, "However, it's not easy to control. Space/time is pretty big. I mean you're multiplying infinity by eternity. That's a lot of space/time to cover. Then you add in alternate realities and the vast imaginations of others, like myself, and that's just mind-bogglingly huge! There so much to do, so much to see."  
  
"Can I go home?"  
  
"You can never go home again, Buffy." Jacki said sitting, "I mean you can return to the place you once called home, but it's not the same as it was before. And even if you're lucky enough to find that exact moment, you will have changed and since your different, you not the person that called it home. Wow, that was even more confusing!"  
  
"No, it kind of makes sense." Buffy said, finishing off her beer. She thought again and it was refilled, "So how am I doing that?"  
  
"Haven't a clue. All I know is that it happens." Jacki said, sitting on a lazy-boy. "It seems that this place follows the same properties of astral plane or sub-space. If you think of it, therefore it is. You know whenever I think to explain it, the Kenny Rodger's song 'Just Dropped In'."  
  
"Um, right."  
  
"You haven't heard the song?" Jacki asked jaw to the ground, "It was in that movie, The Big Lebowski. Oh man what a great song. Great movie too. A little weird but good. But I digress. I believe that you asked one more question? Who am I, really. Well, um, I, ok. I think I got it: I'm Jacki. Pleased to meet you."  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes, "You know as well as I do that it doesn't really answer my question."  
  
"Well I am Jacki. That's me the core of me, the name of me. What happened to create me: well that's a completely different question isn't it? Here it is in a nutshell, I was born in the year 1979 AD in Boston MA, the child of two powerful shaman lines, one druidic, the other aborigine, which gave me ALL kinds of potential. I have an older brother with whom I inadvertantly learnt empathy and weak telepathy. I went to school, the whole bit, I eventually came to the attention of the a break-away faction of the Watcher's Council, and they trained me to be one of them. There was prophecy found, and I ended up in Florida fighting at first the forces of hell, banishing Lilith, the older sister of the Beast Glorificus. I then later found out, the forces of heaven are as fun as the minions of hell. You see there's a battle between heaven and hell. You've had divorced parents you know what's it's like. With the help of Lucifer, I was able to stop the Archangel, Michael and send him back to heaven. He banished me to hell. I got knocked around a few hundred years and came back to Earth very very feral, not unlike your Angel. I was rehabilitated and due to the power I absorbed from Michael and Lilith, I was offered a job by the Powers that Be to be a Protector of Dimensions. My natural nack for writing and imagining made be perfect to send across space/time. I started appearing to other Defenders, such as you, and got you back on your track. I'm sorry about this, but I was the one who influenced Angel, and Cordelia to LA. I was also the one who slowed Spike down enough so that he would be caught and neutered by the Initiative, talked Faith into going to jail instead of Angel, sent Oz on his quest, brought Tara into Willow's life, and brought you here."  
  
"That's a pretty big nutshell."  
  
"Hey, that's almost a few millenia of meddling, and scheming. I think I was pretty susinct." Jacki said with a grin. "I'm sorry if any of that hurt you, we just needed the players in the right place with the right motivation. You're friends in LA had their front to fight, you had yours. I needed to bring in Spike to your side, fully, so he would help protect the key. I need to have Oz break up with Willow so she could be with Tara. Oz would have never inspired her to take on the massive power that is hers by right. Oz would have protected her and made her feel weak. Tara was someone who needed protection, who needed her, who would force her to full strength. Willow's not even aware of her power, you heard her yourself. 'Oh, I can't be the gun. Someone else can be the gun, I can be cudgel of a pointy stick.' Tara also has knowledge, where Willow has strength, those two together..."  
  
"Just make sense." Buffy finished with a smile. "They do." Buffy looked around at the whiteness, "I like this place. It's comfortable."  
  
"Buffy, before you settle in and pick curtains, I have to let you know: You have a choice."  
  
"A choice? How so?"  
  
"Well, like the First Slayer told you, 'Love will lead you to your Gift. Your Gift is Death.' Well as you figured out by now, Death is your gift to the world. It's your gift FROM the world." Jacki paused, and scrunched her face, "How do I say this? Well, I'm handing you a gift receipt. You can return this gift, should you chose."  
  
"You make it sound like a blouse that was the wrong size or something."  
  
"Right. It could be. Maybe you don't like the color. But it's expensive, and rather than having the World spend it's money on something you don't like or want, you can spend it on something else." Jacki said.  
  
"I can go back to Dawn and everyone? I could not be dead?" Buffy asked, sitting down in a tuff of grass, that was suddenly there.  
  
"Well it's complicated." Jacki said, "This isn't like the last time you died. There is a body. You can't just get back in it. At least not without preparations. Not without someone to lead the way."  
  
"Is that where you come in?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Yeah. It is. You see, you at least need a rest. Saving the world a few dozen times, it takes a lot out of ya. That's why the first vampire went crazy and all kill, kill, kill. He fought too long without rest. You see, the first vampire wasn't evil. It was a human man, who took the darkness into himself, to try to contain it. It gets all complex, but after hundreds of years of fighting with the beast within, his mind gave up the fight, and the demon spread. Most vampires were humans with weak wills and low esteem. They have nothing to live for. The souls don't die outright, rather it happens slowly, that's how most young vampires maintain their human personalities, I mean look at Harmony. It's only after about a millenia that they loose their humanity and succumb to the Beast (not Glory). The Romany when they casted the spell basically revived Angel's soul. There are a few with such passion for life and love, with such artistry in their soul, that it can't be killed only repressed."  
  
"Spike." Buffy said, simply. "He repressed his goodness for the love of Druscilla. He let it live again for me?"  
  
"Well, sort of. It was also for your mother and for Dawn. He loved his own mother, and Joyce was very much like her. And Dawn, well, deep down he knew that Dawn was yours, something that came from you, like a daughter. He loved her like a daughter too." Jacki frowned, "He's doesn't believe it's still there. He thinks it was taken away a long time ago. He's lost faith in himself." Jacki paused, "Druscilla also still has a soul."  
  
"But she's killed, and not just trying to impress people."  
  
"Yeah, but she's crazy. Think of how many humans there are that are crazy. They kill just as much as vampires."  
  
"That makes sense."  
  
"But back to the point: You need to rest. That's six, count 'em six apocalypses you had to twart with your bare hands. A soul needs respite. It was evident in the way you shut down. That scared the Powers That Be. They can't have a burnted-out champion. You must be dead for a while. How long you're dead, whether it for the minimum or forever, is your decision. Remember it's your gift, you use it the way you want it."  
  
"What's the minimum?"  
  
"100 years."  
  
"WHAT?!?! All my friends and Dawn will be gone by then. Well except Spike and Angel but that's not enough."  
  
"Relax. Tessering, remember?" Jacki said, "You can go back fairly close, not exactly, cuz I'm not good at homing. You will have been dead. Faith will have the bulk of the Slayer power. Your body's strength and agility will be there, but the everything else is spiritual. You must relinquish it. You need to let go of your body. Just long enough that The Slayer will leave, but no longer."  
  
"It sounds easy."  
  
"yeah, sounds." Jacki scoffed, "You get to sleep most of the time." She then smiled. "But you earned it, Buffy. You saved the world, without sacrificing your innocence."  
  
"What about you?" Buffy asked, "Why aren't you resting, or back home?"  
  
"Because Buffy, I haven't earned it." Jacki said, quietly, "I made some vows. I'm bound to them. I cannot sleep until they are fulfilled."  
  
"So do I go to sleep now?"  
  
"You can, but you have some time to just relax and talk. I find that after death people like to talk about their lives." Jacki said, sitting next to Buffy, "Now I know them myself and everything, but tell me about your friends, about your mom and Dawn. I wanna know what they meant to you..."  
  
"Where to begin?" Buffy said, taking another drink from her beer.   
  
  
The End...well of this part. Hope this wasn't too confusing. I was trying to explain a concept I more or less take for granted because as I really don't know the how or why of things, I just accept "What is, is." (a quote from another time-lost being that I love, Rachel Summers aka Phoenix II [or III, if you count Baron Zemo] aka Mother Askani). So yeah, comments, constructive critism, but please no flames. I'm very sensitive!!!!  



End file.
